Finding Bridge Carson
by Verdreht
Summary: Bridge goes missing, and now it's up to Sky and the others to find him. Only...there might be a little more to that than anyone thought. Bridge/Sky slash, with plenty of Bridge whump and comforting Sky.
1. Chapter 1

He was going to kill them. He didn't care that he'd known Syd for most of his life, or that Z was one of his best friends; he was going to kill them, and then bring them back, just so he could kill them again.

His intentions must have shown on his face, because as he made his way down the halls towards Mission Control, lower and higher ranking officers alike gave him a wide berth. The others would be there already. The only reason he wasn't was that he'd been out with RIC doing one last scan of the area, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, he could find him.

He hadn't, and with his hopes quashed and his panic rising, Sky was on a war path.

As he stepped through the doors of Mission Control, five sets of eyes turned on him. He couldn't help thinking that there should have been one more pair of eyes there, and he knew exactly who was to blame for it.

He made a bee line for Syd and Z, his fists clenched at his sides and his jaw set in a tight line.

Syd saw the look, and having known Sky as long as she had, knew exactly what was coming. "Sky, listen, there was nothing we could—"

"I don't want to hear your excuses!" he shouted, surprising even himself. He'd never lost control like this, but he couldn't help it. It was his boyfriend that was missing; it was his _best_ friend. "Even a D-level cadet knows to never leave a teammate behind. You let them take him! You let them take him, and then you ran!"

"We didn't run, Sky!" Z protested. "I get that you're upset and all, but—"

"No, you don't get it!" Sky snapped abruptly. "He's your teammate!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Sky saw Jack approach. The Red Ranger put a hand on his shoulder, keeping him from stepping any closer to the two girls. Already, his height advantage left him towering ominously over them. That was good. A part of him, the vengeful, angry part, wanted them to be scared. He wanted them to be scared like their teammate was scared, but unlike their teammate, they _knew_ their assailant wouldn't hurt them.

Syd stepped in. "We were outnumbered. Would you have preferred all three of us get caught?"

"Cadet Drew is right," said Cruger firmly. "Tate, your squad mate made a calculated strategic decision in order to protect his fellow Rangers. Nothing good will come of shouting at your comrades for that."

Sky opened his mouth to protest – he didn't know what he was going to say, but something had to be said – but Cruger held up a hand to cut him off.

"I think, perhaps, your energies might be better directed at heading the search. Unless, of course, you are too close to the investigation."

From the looks passed about the room, it seemed everyone knew how low a blow Cruger had just delivered. All the same, Sky had to admit that he had a valid point. If anyone was going to be heading the search for the missing ranger it was going to be him. He had the most experience, the most training, and, most importantly, the most incentive.

Steeling his face, Sky squared his shoulders and saluted his canine commander. "Sir!" he said, and with one last less-than-friendly glance at Syd and Z, he started giving orders.

And while he wasn't sure where to start looking, what was happening to his boyfriend, or who exactly he wanted to take it out on more, there was one thing for certain.

No matter what, he was going to find Bridge Carson.


	2. Chapter 2

With an angry growl, Gruumm threw aside the door to Mora's room and barged inside. "Mora!" he shouted. The little girl didn't even bother looking up from her pretend tea party at the menacing tone.

"Someone's cranky," she told her stuffed fabric guests as she poured herself a cup of imaginary tea.

"Where is Broodwing?" he demanded.

At that, Mora let out a little giggle. "He's busy," she said. "Something about a new friend for us to play with."

"Not a friend, Mora! A Ranger!" Gruumm corrected harshly. "Now where is he?"

"Right here, my liege," said Broodwing. He had appeared in the door just moments before.

Gruumm turned on him. "My sources tell me you captured a Ranger several days ago. Where is he now?"

"I've released him back into the city."

"What?" Gruumm shouted. The sound of his voice echoed against the walls of the lair, and Mora turned to glare at him.

"Would you two keep it down? I'm trying to have a tea party!"

"Silence!" Gruumm's voice roared through the room, and he strode up to Broodwing. "Why in all the galaxy did you _release_ the Ranger?"

"Calm yourself, my liege. I assure you it was all part of a genius plan."

"What plan could possibly call for you to release a Ranger from our grasp?"

"It's simple, sir. You know firsthand how…unsuccessful efforts have been to destroy the Rangers. It seems as though none of mine or Mora's monsters can handle them. So, if _we_ cannot destroy them, then perhaps one of their own might achieve better results."

"And how do you intend to set this Ranger of yours against his own?"

"It's already done, my liege. It was merely a question of using the Ranger's own powers against him. You see, sir, this one is a psychic. A psychometric empath, to be specific. He sees the auras of people, and can see their good…or their _evil_." At this, Broodwing let out a laugh. "He put up a fight at first, but with some technology and…behavioral modification, he will see nothing but malice and cruelty in the auras of his precious fellow Rangers."

"You're sure this will work?" Gruumm asked.

"We will soon find out. It shouldn't be long now before the Rangers discover their little green friend wandering around the city. No doubt they will come to his aid, and when they do, they're in for a surprise…."

It had been almost a week. Five whole days, and Sky had hardly slept, hardly eaten, hardly even sat down. All his time was spent in the Control Center or on patrols, looking for any clue to his boyfriend's whereabouts. He had mixed feelings about how quiet it had been; it meant he could devote all his time to finding Bridge, but it also meant that there had been no signs of him.

That all changed the morning of the sixth day. Sky was running through some more CCTV footage of where Bridge had gone missing, when suddenly the alarms started to go off. Barely a minute later, the rest of the team came running in, and as they took their places around the center control panel, Cruger began the briefing.

"Rangers, it seems there is a disturbance in the shopping district," Cruger began.

"Don't take this the wrong way, D.C., but I think we've got bigger worries than a mall tussle," Jack interrupted.

Cruger silenced him with a look. "I think you'll find this particular disturbance to be worth your time. Kat, pull up the footage."

Kat's nimble fingers danced across the keys of the panel in front of her, and a few seconds later, security camera footage of the shopping district appeared in the center of the panel. It was hard to make out, given the distance of the camera from the confrontation, but there was obviously some sort of fight going on.

"It just looks like a brawl to me," Z said, and Sky had to agree. The only thing he could tell about the fight was that it seemed to be everyone against one person – there was one figure in the center of the big crowd, and they seemed to be moving in from all sides.

"Kat, zoom in closer," Cruger instructed, and once again, a few keystrokes from Kat had the screen bending to Cruger's will.

As soon as the auto-clear finished correcting the pixilation, Sky felt the air leave his lungs in a rush. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

It was Bridge! The guy in the very center of the massive throng of onlookers and participants, was Bridge! He was even wearing his SPD uniform.

"Is that…" Syd started. "But what is he…?"

Jack was a little quicker to put the words together. "Why is he fighting civilians?" he asked. That knocked Sky out of his shocked daze, and he realized that sure enough, Bridge _was_ fighting what looked to be a group of civilians. There was no audio, but with the enhanced zoom, he could see his boyfriend's mouth moving frantically, his face contorted like he was screaming at the people. And he wasn't the only one screaming.

It seemed like there were a couple of heroes in the crowd. They were big guys, who seemed to have taken it on themselves to put Bridge down for the count. For the most part, it looked like Bridge was holding his own, but there was something off about the way he was moving. Bridge was never exactly the picture of elegance, but his style of fighting had its own unique, accidental grace to it. That wasn't the case now. It seemed like it was all he could do to dodge the simplest of punches, though he was managing pretty well. He was giving those guys a run for their money, fighting them with all he had.

The only question was why.

"We have to go," Sky said. That was the only instruction he gave before he turned on his heel and took off towards the garage as fast as his long legs would carry him. He was on his bike before the others could catch up, and he sped off while they piled into the Jeep. They could catch up, and Sky couldn't wait for them. Whatever Bridge was doing in that shopping center, he needed help, and Sky was going to give it.


	3. Chapter 3

Bridge had no idea what was going on. One second, he was in Gruumm's lair. There was Broodwing, and more krybots than he could count, and...pain. So much pain.

The next thing he knew, he was in an alley. It was cold and dark, just like Gruumm's lair had been, but this was different. It was louder, and there was a pressure in his head that threatened to split his very skull open from the inside. He didn't know what had happened, but he hurt. He needed help.

He'd tried his communicator, but it wouldn't dial out. Everything else seemed functional, but he didn't need to morph; he needed to call his friends. He needed to call Sky.

Maybe if he could find a phone...but there weren't any phones nearby. That meant he needed to walk, but as he pushed himself up, he discovered that would be easier said than done. As he straightened his legs, he felt pain shoot up the left one, radiating from his knee outwards.

_Kicking the krybot. Something coming down on his leg, and a snap. Screaming. No one comes. _

Bridge shook his head, only to realize that wasn't a good idea. The pressure exploded in a flash of pain, and for a moment, he saw stars. He couldn't stay there, though. For all he knew, Broodwing could be coming back any second. He needed to get somewhere safe, preferably back to SPD Command.

Goal in mind, he started out of the alley. Each step was a battle, but he fought it because he had to. Anything would be better than going back to Gruumm's lair.

However, as he reached the end of the alley, Bridge quickly came to realize that something was seriously wrong. The alley let out into the shopping district, and without his gloves, the whole place was a roaring kaleidoscope of colors and sensations.

But the problem wasn't how many colors there were. The problem was _what_ the colors were. So hot and vivid; they burned his eyes, and he could _feel_ them in his head. They were angry. They were so, so angry, and vengeful and cruel.

They were evil. So many people – every person in the whole shopping center, every person in his range of sight – they were monsters.

Suddenly, there was a hand on his shoulder. Startled, he whipped around, and found himself staring at another monster. He couldn't see the face through the colors, couldn't see the person through their aura, but he knew they were bad. They wanted to hurt him, like Broodwing, like Gruumm.

Panic sent his reflexes into overdrive, and before he even had time to command his body to perform the action, he was knocking the man's arm aside and delivering a solid punch to his solar plexus. There was something not right about this, about all of this evil in one place. Something in him screamed it, and it was the same thing that kept him from hurting the evil figures as they closed in around him. There were so many of them, but he couldn't hurt them. Not until he knew what was going on. If he could just keep them back, if he could just hold them off until SPD was alerted, then the others would know what to do.

They were coming at him, though, and they didn't seem as inclined to pull their punches. As blow after blow slipped through his weakening defenses, he could only hope that help would come soon.

Sky's bike skidded onto the scene with the cruiser not far behind, and the Blue Ranger jumped off of it. The crowd was in the center of the shopping area, on the concrete square that separated one wall of stores from the other. He could hear shouting, both male and female, but over all of it, one voice stood out.

"Please stand back! I don't want to hurt you! I'm SPD, just get back!"

It was Bridge.

The others caught up to Sky as he started pushing people back out of the crowd. They had their badges out, and when people caught sight of them, they were a lot quicker to comply with their instructions than they apparently were with Bridge's.

After a moment, only a tenacious few remained. They were big guys – the heroes – and they had Bridge surrounded.

"Finally!" one of the burly men exclaimed. "We thought you SPD guys would never show up. This nut job says he's one of you."

Sky's jaw set hard, and he had to remind himself that it was probably against SPD regulations to beat the tar out of civilians. Not that it seemed to be stopping Bridge any, if the four or five guys on the ground were any indication. Granted, it didn't look like the guys were hurt too bad or anything, they were just incapacitated.

"He is one of us. Now clear the area before I charge you with assault," Sky said.

Suddenly Bridge, who'd had his back to the Rangers at first in favor of squaring off with another one of his assailants, turned around. "Sky, I—" The smile fell from his face as soon as his eyes settled on his teammates. A look of panic replaced it, and Bridge scrambled back. The big guy he'd been staring down only moments before stepped out of the way, but Bridge tripped over his shoe and hit the ground.

Syd was the first to react to his blunder, hurrying towards him. "It's okay, Bridge, you're safe now. We—"

"Get away from me!" Bridge shouted as he hurried to get back on his feet. His bare hands formed fists in front of him, and he looked for all the world like he was getting ready for a fight.

Jack stepped forward, until he was even with Syd. "Hey, man, what's the problem? We're your friends, remember?"

"You're not," Bridge retorted. "I don't know who you are, but you're not my friends. You sound like them, and you look like them, but you're not them. The colors are wrong, and colors don't change, because people don't change. You can't be them, because you're not their colors, so stop lying! I can see that you're evil, and my friends aren't evil!"

"Bridge, you aren't making any sense," Jack said. With a confused and worried look on his face, he reached for his friend.

Imagine his surprise when he found himself flat on his back on the hard concrete ground. Bridge had dropped and kicked his legs out from under him the moment he touched him, and now the Green Ranger was back on his feet, staring at them.

"I said get back!"

"Bridge, it's us!" Z shouted.

"It is you!" Bridge shouted back. "But who you are and who you say you think you are is different people? _Are_ different people. You're you, but you are not my friends!"

It was obvious that the Rangers were getting desperate. Something was wrong with Bridge, and they had no idea what it was.

"Sky, do something!" Syd said.

"Don't," Bridge said immediately, as Sky started to step forward. He held his hand out towards Sky, and if anything, his expression grew more frantic. "Don't call him Sky! He's not Sky! I know Sky better than I know anyone, and you can sound like him and you can make yourself look like him, but you can't be how he is! Sky is good – the goodest. The best! He's not evil, and you are! You're not Sky, so don't say you are, because you're not!"

Sky's eyes were wide. This wasn't happening. It was like Bridge was seeing something else than what was really in front of him, and whatever it was, it had something to do with his powers. He looked so scared, but at the same time, his jaw was set and his eyes were narrow: all telltale signs that Bridge was ready for a fight.

"We have to get him off the street before he hurts someone," Z said.

"They're not the ones I'm worried about getting hurt," Sky replied. Between the dark bags under his bloodshot eyes, the cuts and bruises on his face, and the way he was holding his middle with his free arm, Sky couldn't help wondering if Bridge had been injured.

"Z's right, though," Syd agreed. "We need to get him off the street."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Bridge said.

Jack started for him again. "I'm sorry, buddy, but I don't see you having much of a choice." And once again, he reached for his friend.

This time, Bridge took a more offensive approach. He threw an elbow into Jack's arm and brought his knee up into Jack's gut. The Red Ranger stumbled back from the unexpected retaliation, and Z just barely managed to catch him before he crashed into a merchant's cart.

As Jack righted himself, he stared at Bridge with an incredulous look. "He's freaking crazy!"

"I'm crazy? You're the one that thinks you're someone else!" Bridge shouted.

Syd frowned. "Listen, Bridge, you have to come with us. We'll keep you safe and figure out whatever's going on with you, but we can't let you stay here."

"I won't go with you!"

Jack was about to make another pass at Bridge, but this time, Sky held him back and stepped up in his place.

"You guys stay back; I've got this," he said, and then turned his attention back to Bridge. The youngest Ranger was practically doubled over, but he still had that same sort of daring expression on his face. He really thought the other Rangers were out to hurt him; he thought they were evil. Sky's best guess was that Broodwing had done something to him, and if that was the case, then his best shot was to get back to Command where they could keep him under observation and figure out what was going on with him.

"I don't want to hurt you," Bridge said as Sky approached. "Just go now, and I won't arrest you for impersonating an SPD officer."

Sky subtly reached for the handcuffs at his belt, all the while continuing his slow approach. "I don't want to hurt you either, Bridge," he said. "And I'm not going to, but I am gonna take you back to Kat. I don't know what Gruumm did to you, but I know she can help."

When Sky reached for Bridge, it was obvious he tried to pull a similar move as the one he'd pulled on Jack. However, Sky and Bridge had been sparring buddies since Bridge had first arrived at the Academy; they knew each other way too well, and since Bridge wasn't expecting to fight Sky, that put Sky at the advantage.

He caught Bridge's leg mid-kick and used it to turn the other Ranger around so that he had his back to him. With a quick kick to the back of Bridge's remaining knee, the Green Ranger went down with a cry of both surprise and, to Sky's alarm, pain.

All the same, he couldn't let the opportunity pass him by, and with a knee on Bridge's back to keep him on the ground, Sky grabbed hold of both of Bridge's arms. Bridge shouted and thrashed, but Sky managed to get the cuffs around his slender wrists.

"Get off me!" Bridge screamed, and the terror in his voice cut straight through every single one of the Rangers. Sky knew he was scared; he'd just escaped one capture and fallen straight into the next, and if he really thought that Sky was evil, then he couldn't imagine what it had to be like to be taken down. He guessed he was just glad Bridge was so tired; he didn't know what he would've done if he'd actually had to fight his boyfriend to take him down.

As he pulled Bridge up off the ground, he kept an arm around his shoulders and kept him close. Bridge continued to twist and struggle, and each angry, frightened cry was like an individual knife to Sky's heart. "It's okay," he told him as he singlehandedly wrestled him back to the cruiser. "I'm not going to hurt you; I'm going to get you help, Bridge. It's going be okay."

He just had to hope the next few hours weren't going to make him a liar.


	4. Chapter 4

Those next few hours later found Sky a lot less hopeful than he had been. He'd told Bridge that Kat could help, which she could've…if she'd been able to get close to him. Every time she tried though, he threw a fit. The last time, after a few failed solo attempts, Kat had gone in with a few cadets. Sky told her not to, but she insisted that they had to do something. It wasn't that he disagreed with the thinking, but throwing a bunch of would-be attackers seemed to be a bit counterproductive on the "let's not terrify Bridge any worse than he already is" front.

As it turned out, Sky had been right. Of the four cadets Kat had gone in with, one came out with a busted lip, another got the air knocked out of him, and the other two had gotten a nice taste of the concrete flooring when Bridge swept their feet out from under them.

The reality of it was, though, that Bridge could've done much worse. Something was keeping him from really taking people down, which meant whatever Gruumm had done to him, he was fighting it, and that had to count for something.

They were nearing the seventh hour of his captivity, though. Seven whole hours he'd been in the interrogation room, because they couldn't bear to put him in a holding cell. In that time, Bridge had done nothing but pace and mutter to himself. Most of it was unintelligible, but a few times, Sky could pick out the odd word. "Evil" came up a lot, and "colors" popped up here and there. It seemed like he was trying to figure out just what he was seeing, but he didn't seem to be having much luck. Sky couldn't blame him; in all his life, his powers, his ability to read people, had never been off. T-Top had been proof of that. Now, those powers were showing him one thing that he didn't think could be possible, and it was really messing with him.

And it wasn't like they could sedate him or anything, because they didn't know if Gruumm might have given him something that it might interact badly with. Whatever they did, they would have to get Bridge calmed down first, so that hopefully they could reverse whatever was going on with him.

The problem was they were running out of time. It was apparent that Bridge was getting weaker by the moment, stumbling on nothing and leaning against the wall like he needed help with his balance. It made sense; he hadn't had anything to eat or drink since they'd found him. Sky thought that it was partly because he didn't trust them, but mostly because he was too caught up in his own world, in his own thoughts to be bothered with it.

Finally, as Bridge stumbled for the tenth time in that many minutes, Sky'd had enough. "We can't just sit here like this," he said as he turned on the others. Kat, Cruger, Syd, and Jack were all in the observation room, sharing in Sky's misery, because they couldn't bring themselves to leave Bridge either. Even Boom kept stopping by, but he would have to leave soon after. He was close with all the Rangers, after all, but he was closest to Bridge, and seeing him like this….

"And what do you suggest we do, cadet?" Cruger asked.

"Let me see him." They hadn't let him go in so far. Kat and Syd had both agreed that it would be worst for Sky to go in, because Sky was the one Bridge trusted the most. It would upset Bridge the most to see Sky how he was seeing everyone else.

Kat looked at him sympathetically. "We've talked about this, Sky…" she said.

"That's all we've done since we found him! All we've done is talk and stand around here and watch him, and it's not helping. Just let me—" Suddenly, an idea struck Sky. "Talking!" he said. From the confused expressions he was getting, he got the feeling they weren't following his idea. Briefly, he wondered if it felt like this for Bridge all the time, but he quickly got himself back on track. "What if I don't let him see me? What if I just talk to him? If I keep my shields up, I can keep him out of my head. What if all he can hear is my voice?" As he talked he picked up fervor, and without waiting for anyone else's go ahead, he ran over to the comm. system.

Making sure his mental shields were in place, he jammed his thumb into the comm. button. "Bridge," he said. At the sound of his name, the younger man's head snapped up. He turned towards the glass wall that separated them, but between the one-way glass and Sky's mental shields, the Blue Ranger was confident that Bridge didn't see anything.

"You sound like him," Bridge said, his voice soft over the speakers. "I don't see him, but you sound like him. You sound like Sky. How can you sound like my Sky?"

"I am your Sky," he said into the mic. He knew he should feel awkward or worried about talking like this to Bridge in front of his commander. There were rules, after all, about intra-squad relationships, even if they were admittedly quite liberal with the same-sex element. He was pretty sure they already knew, though, Cruger included, and at this point, they could kick him off the base, as long as he got Bridge back, safe and healthy again.

"I saw you," Bridge protested, pressing his hand to the glass like he knew Sky was just on the other side of it. His bare palm was scratched and scuffed, and a bruise reached up the heel of it from his raw wrist. They'd taken his jacket when they'd taken his cuffs off, leaving him in his green SPD shirt. It didn't do nearly as well as the jacket had done at hiding his injuries, from the scrapes and bruises on his arm to the odd way he was holding his right shoulder. Dirt covered the shirt, as well as various other stains that Sky couldn't and wouldn't identify, though the copper of it was a pretty good clue-in.

"I saw you, but you weren't you. You looked like you, but you were so blurry, Sky. Or not-Sky. I don't know if you're Sky, but if you're not, it doesn't matter, and if you are, it does. I saw you and you weren't the right color, but it looked like you and it sounded like you. It sounded like you sound now, and I don't know whether that's right or not. Everything's so bright." His frenzied rambling was bordering on furious as he resumed his pacing. Suddenly, though, he started for the wall.

"Bridge, what are you doing?" Sky asked. He didn't like the way Bridge was flexing his arms; it looked like he was trying to steel himself for something, and anything he needed to brace for probably wouldn't end well for him.

"Thinking," Bridge said simply. "I need to think." And with that, he put his hands on the ground and kicked his feet upwards. What was normally a graceful moved looked awkward and strained, and had it not been for the wall that Bridge's heels thudded against, he probably would've just kept going and toppled over onto his back. His face was set in a grimace, now, and his arms shook.

Kat came up behind Sky and put a hand on his shoulder. When she spoke, it was quiet, so that it didn't pick up in the comm. "He shouldn't be doing that. That cut over his eyebrow – he might have a concussion. Tell him to get down."

Sky nodded. "We've talked about this, Bridge. Remember what I said about standing on your head?"

Bridge let out a little laugh at that, half hysterical and half amused. "You told me to think on my feet," he said. His face was going red, and blood from the cut on his forehead was running down into his hair. "But I can't think on my feet. I can't even think on my head. Everything's racing and my head hurts. I have to concentrate." He faltered for a moment, his arm buckling, but he managed to catch himself. "Be quiet; I need to concentrate."

"Bridge, you don't—." In an instant, all the strength seemed to leave Bridge's arms and the younger man collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. A loud thud rang out as all his weight hit the wall behind him, and then the floor. "Bridge!" Sky shouted, and he was off. He ran to the door, punching in the entry code as fast as he could, and he didn't even wait for the automatic door to open all the way before he slipped past it and ran inside.

Bridge was lying on the ground when Sky skidded to his knees in front of him. At first, Sky thought he was unconscious – he wasn't moving, and it had been a heck of a fall. But then, after a moment, Bridge started to move. His face scrunched up like it always did when he was in pain, and his hands tightened to fists as he started to push himself up.

Sky went to help him without thinking, slipping an arm around his shoulder to help ease him up to sit against the wall. It wasn't until Bridge gave a start that he realized his mistake; he'd touched Bridge, and in his worry, he'd dropped his shields.

He immediately pulled his hand back as Bridge opened his eyes. For a moment, they stared at one another, Bridge too dazed to move, and Sky too worried to even breathe. He was half expecting Bridge to freak out the moment he got his wits back about him after the fall.

Recognition started to return to those green eyes of his, and Sky just knew he was going to get it. He'd never felt so nervous in all his life. The very next moment, though, he got a surprise.

Slowly, a smile spread across Bridge's face. It was sluggish and mild, but there was something decidedly Bridge about it. It looked…relieved.

"Bridge? What's going on? Are you okay?" Sky thought he would snap from all the tension in his chest. Something had changed in Bridge, and he didn't know what it was. For better or for worse, he hadn't the slightest idea, and it was killing him.

But Bridge just kept his smile, and reached out with a shaking hand towards Sky. Too shocked to move, Sky felt Bridge's hand settle on his cheek. "Your colors," Bridge said softly. "They're right again. Blue again. You're Sky."

It took a long moment for the words to sink in, but when they did, Sky felt all the air leave his lungs in a rush. Relief hit him like a ton of lead weights, and every fear he'd felt for the past week relaxed in a wave of utter happiness.

Before it even registered what he was doing, Sky had his arms around Bridge's slender form. He pulled him close and held him as tightly as he dared, cradling Bridge's head against his shoulder. "It's okay," he whispered, rocking Bridge back and forth. "You're safe now."

As he spoke, his voice cracked, and tears slowly rolled down his cheeks. God, words couldn't describe what it felt like to hold Bridge again. Nearly a week. Nearly a week it had been, worrying about his boyfriend and not knowing what was happening to him. The helplessness….And now, as he could feel Bridge's familiar form in his arms, smell the barely-lingering, utterly unique scent of rainforests and metal that always seemed to surround him, Sky couldn't help the slip in his self control.

"I'm sorry," Bridge said, his voice muffled by Sky's shoulder. Bridge had always been a cuddler, and now that he knew he had his Sky back, he'd curled into him so thoroughly that it was hard to tell where one man stopped and the other began. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I don't know what happened, it was just…I woke up in town, and everything was wrong. All the people, they weren't what they were supposed to be. They were monsters, and I knew it wasn't right, and I tried not to hurt them, but they kept coming after me. There were so many of them, Sky, and they just kept coming. I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

"Shh," Sky hushed him, stroking his fingers through Bridge's dirty, matted hair. "Everyone's fine, Bridge. You didn't…" Sky trailed off as his fingers carded through something wet at the back of Bridge's head, just at the base of his skull. At first, he thought it was sweat, but there was something else. It was like a knot on the back of his head, but in a line, and he could feel little pieces of _something_, sharp against his fingers. Confused, he leaned back a little bit and held his hand up where he could see it.

He was alarmed to find his hand was coated in blood, with bits of what looked to be metal here and there.

Without wasting time on an explanation, Sky scooted to the side and pulled Bridge's head down so that he could get a better look at it.

Be it with his empathy, or just general observation, Bridge figured out that something was wrong. "Sky, what are you—"

"Hang on, Bridge, I need to see something," he said. As gently as he could, pushed blood- and grime-slicked hair out of the way so that he could get a better look at the bump. He knew it hadn't been there before, or at least, hadn't been split like this before, because blood was running down his neck into the collar of his shirt, and Sky knew he would've seen that.

Sure enough, right along the back of his head, there was a line of raised stitches about the length of Sky's middle finger. Most of them were torn, and pieces of metal showed through the grotesquely split, pale skin. Something had been surgically implanted in his boyfriend's head.

And suddenly, it all made sense. Whatever the device was, it had to have been what was messing with Bridge's powers. He must have accidentally crushed it when he fell from his headstand and hit his head, and with the device broken, Bridge's powers returned to normal.

He wondered if Bridge even knew it was there. Just to be safe, when Bridge reached for the back of his head to see what Sky was doing, Sky pushed his hand away.

"Sky?" Bridge sounded anxious, and started trying to straighten back up.

Sky let him, but he kept a hand cradled on the back of Bridge's head. He didn't want him to hit it on the wall when he leaned back, and it was bleeding something fierce. "It's okay, Bridge, but I need to call Kat in here. She needs to have a look at you."

At that Bridge let out a whine, and tried to pull away. This time, Sky wasn't so accommodating, holding Bridge firmly in place.

"I want to go to bed," Bridge protested. "I'm tired, Sky; I just want to go to bed."

"You can sleep after Kat gets a look at you, okay?" Sky said, and without waiting for Bridge's acceptance, he turned and nodded towards the one-way glass. Though the rest of the team had stayed respectfully outside of the room, he knew that they were probably listening in. Kat would get the message.

Sure enough, she came in just a moment later, walking over to where Sky was holding the injured Green Ranger.

"Hey, Bridge," she greeted gently as she knelt down on his other side. She nodded to Sky to let him back a little bit, and Sky did so, but not without a warning.

"Watch his head," he said, and just to be safe, he kept his hand in place. Kat nodded at the warning, but was undeterred from her duties. Placing a gloved hand on Bridge's filthy shirt, just over his shoulder, she reached a hand for the side of his neck. Not surprisingly, Bridge jerked back a little, but Sky hushed him and held him still.

"It's okay, Bridge. I'm just getting your pulse," she said as she pressed two fingers against the side of his neck. She normally went for the wrists in trauma patients, just because it was a little less vulnerable of an area. Bridge's wrists were all raw, though, and one of them was swollen, so she didn't want to cause him any more discomfort than she had to.

For a moment, everything was silent, and then Kat nodded to herself. "A little fast, but not out of the ordinary. Bridge, I need you to answer a couple of questions for me. Can you do that?"

"I can answer them," Bridge said. "I might not answer them right. I might not even answer the right question, but I can give you an answer. Not too many questions, though. I'm tired, and there's a lot of questions out there, and most answers just raise more questions anyway, and—"

Sky put a gentle hand on Bridge's cheek, effectively silencing the empath. "Just answer what you can, buddy. It's okay if some of it's a bit jumbled."

Bridge nodded, and promptly winced, his hand going up for the back of his head. Once again, Sky intercepted the hand, dropping it back to Bridge's lap.

Kat took that as her cue to continue. "I need you to tell me if you're hurt," she said.

"That's not a question," Bridge muttered, dipping his head a little with a smile. When he did, though, he winced again. "Sky, your hand hurts. My head, I mean. It stings."

Sky frowned towards Kat, and the doctor leaned forward. Moving his hand out of the way, Sky made sure she could see the back of Bridge's head. She nodded her thanks, and started pushing Bridge's hair out of the way much like Sky had done.

Unlike last time, though, Bridge wasn't feeling as cooperative. He tried to lean forward away from the hands, to get away from the pain they were causing.

"I know it hurts, Bridge, but you have to sit still for me," Kat told him. It sounded like she was talking to a small child or a frightened animal. Then again, it seemed to Sky that maybe Bridge was a little both at the time.

With a sympathetic frown, Sky pulled Bridge's head down so that his forehead rested against his shoulder. He had a hand on the back of his neck to hold it there, and brushed his thumb soothingly along the slick skin. He did his best not to think about what it was slicked with.

"Oh…" Kat breathed as soon as she caught sight of the wound on the back of Bridge's head. Her professionalism quickly pushed her shock back, though, and she straightened. "Bridge, did they give you anything? Any medicine or anything at all?"

"I don't remember," Bridge muttered into Sky's shoulder. The subject matter was clearly making him uncomfortable, and he fisted his fingers in the fabric of Sky's uniform jacket. "Not while I was awake. They hit me over my eye and I blacked out. Then I was…I was…_there_, and then I wasn't. They hit me again, and I was in the alley."

Kat nodded. For a second, she seemed to be debating something, but then she seemed to decide. "Okay, Bridge, I'm going to give you something, and it's going to make you a little drowsy," she said. As she spoke, she reached into her lab pocket and pulled out a syringe. "You're just going to feel a little pinprick in your arm."

Bridge suddenly gave a start. "That's what you say for shots," he said. All the fatigue and relaxation was gone from his voice, replaced with upset that pitched his voice a little higher. It only got worse when he turned his head and saw the syringe over Sky's shoulder. Because as if it wasn't bad enough that Bridge had been beaten, captured, and scared within an inch of his life, it just so happened there was one more trauma the Green Ranger would have to endure.

It just so happened Bridge was terrified of needles.

"No," Bridge said quickly, pushing his palms into Sky's chest to try to get free of his boyfriend's hold. But Sky was always stronger, even when Bridge was at full strength; Bridge's better attribute was speed. His struggles did nothing at all, and Sky held Bridge still. "Sky, no! Let me go! I don't want to sleep anymore! I'm not tired!" he shouted.

Sky just held firm, keeping Bridge's arms pinned between their two torsos and locking his arms around his back. "Easy, Bridge, easy. You'll hardly even feel it, and when you wake up, we'll have you all patched up."

"I don't want it!" Bridge repeated. His cries weren't unheard, but they were unheeded as Kat pushed the sleeve of his t-shirt up and out of the way. "Sky!"

The Blue Ranger's heart ached at the pure _panic_ in Bridge's desperate cries. He knew what he was doing was better for Bridge in the long run, but at the same time, it killed him that he was playing a part in Bridge's torment. The poor guy, barely more than a kid, had already been through enough. He didn't deserve any of this.

"I know," he said, and tried to pretend he didn't hear Bridge's sobs as Kat pushed the needle into his skin and pressed the plunger. Drugs released into his system, Kat pulled the needle out and backed up to give the two some space. "There, see, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

But for once, Bridge didn't say a word. He'd gone quiet, his trembling whines the only noise breaking from his split lips. Careful to avoid the wound on the back of his head, Sky carded his fingers through Bridge's hair soothingly, rocking him back and forth and whispering gentle reassurances in his ear.

"You're okay," he said softly, though he was pretty sure Bridge was beyond hearing him, now. The medicine worked quickly, and with each passing second, Bridge grew heavier against him. "Everything's okay, now. I've got you."

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, but eventually, Bridge's breathing evened out and the younger Ranger slumped against him, limp like a ragdoll. As Sky turned him over in his arms, cradling his shoulders in the crook of his elbow, Kat called for a medical team to bring in a stretcher.

When they got there, though, Sky couldn't bring himself to let go of his boyfriend. After everything, he was afraid…it felt like if he let him go, he might not get him back. He'd already had to cope with missing him for nearly a week now; he didn't know if he could bear it again.

"Come on, man, Kat'll take good care of him," Jack said, putting a hand on Sky's shoulder. He hadn't even heard his teammates approach, and as he looked at them, he could feel the medics lifting the unconscious Bridge from his arms.

It took every ounce of his fractured self-control to let them, and as he watched Bridge be wheeled out in the stretcher, he could only pray that everything really would be okay.


	5. Chapter 5

He was so still. Bridge was _never_ still, but there…lying on that bed in the medical bay, he wasn't even moving. The only motion in the room, the only sound beyond Sky's own thudding heartbeat, was the monitor. All the wires and tubes, most leading under the bandages on Bridge's otherwise bare chest. Even it barely stirred, and only for his even, respirator-assisted breathing.

Sky couldn't help thinking of how much Bridge would fuss about it if he was awake. Especially the cannula. Something in his nose – it would drive Bridge crazy.

Crazi_er_.

But he wasn't. He wasn't awake, and he hadn't been for nine hours, twenty-one minutes, and…thirteen seconds.

Sky had spent at least eight of those hours sitting right where he was then: in the barely-padded chair next to his bed.

As soon as they'd finished in surgery – under a thin band of bandages around his head, Bridge now had a bald spot and seventeen stitches courtesy of Gruumm's device – Kat had moved Bridge to the ISO room in the medical bay. It was standard operating procedure for Bridge; the last thing they wanted was to give him a sensory overload while he was just waking up and too groggy to control his powers.

To some degree, the silence was a curse. Sky wasn't used to it. Being around Bridge as often as he was, what with working with him and rooming with him and _dating_ him, he was used to a constant stream of idle ramblings, and the silence just made the absence of those ramblings all the more poignant. All the more painful.

It was for the best, though, for Bridge, and that was really all that mattered in the end. Besides, it had given Sky a chance to, for all intents and purposes, memorize Bridge's diagnosis.

Two broken ribs, a mild concussion, a fractured wrist – a hairline fracture of his left radius, technically, but given the circumstances, even Sky was having a hard time being technical – and more cuts and scrapes than even Kat had cared to catalogue. The worst of it, though, was his knee. He had a partial tear in his ACL; the damn thing was so bruised and swollen, Kat said she'd thought it was a full tear initially. For the time being, like his wrist, it had been splinted, iced, and elevated, but they wouldn't know the full extent of the damage until the inflammation went down enough for him to walk on it. How he did then would be the difference between physical therapy and surgery.

And that was assuming they could keep Bridge off his feet long enough to let it heal _that_ much.

"What are we going to do with you?" Sky said, sighing as he stood. He was starting to lose feeling in _his_ legs; it was time for his hourly pacing session. "Probably have to tie you to the bed." The words had no sooner left his mouth than his stomach tightened. He could still hear it: the panic in Bridge's voice when he'd caught him, the way he'd fought against him all the way to the station. It was enough that he'd told Kat to take the restraints off the bed, in case it stirred up some bad memories.

He cleared his throat. "Or maybe we'll just bribe you instead. Toast. Buttery." His fingers twitched subconsciously at his side, and it occurred to him then that not only was he channeling Bridge's Buttery Toast Twitch, but he was talking to himself. And, what's worse, he wasn't _stopping_. "You're rubbing off on me, Bridge. You're making me crazy like you." Logically, he knew that wasn't right, and that maybe it was a little low to bad-mouth his injured, unconscious boyfriend.

It was just easier than admitting he was scared of the silence.

"Come on, Bridge…" He stood at the side of his boyfriend's bed, and as he spoke, his hand found its way into Bridge's newly-washed hair. It was soft again beneath his fingers, free of the earlier grit and grime, and stuck out wildly over the thin line of bandages around his brow. "Wake up. Please." He needed the noise. He needed the constant, happy drivel of trivia that never seemed to stop. He needed _Bridge_, happy and healthy, and the fact that there was nothing he could do to make that happen right then and there was killing him.

Another sigh broke loose. Taking his hand from Bridge's hair, he rubbed the mounting grogginess from his eyes – a week without sleep was starting to wear on him, as evident by the five o'clock shadow on his jaw, the absence of his uniform jacket over his t-shirt, and the no-doubt awe-inspiring dark circles under his eyes – and started back for the chair. Maybe he could snag a few more hours of sleep before Bridge came around.

He made it all of about three steps away from the bed before he noticed something.

The monitor. The beeping.

It had changed.

Those three steps went a lot faster when he was walking _towards_ Bridge's bed, and in the ever-quickening span of the beat, he was once again standing over the bed. Frantically, his eyes searched for any sign of life. The heart monitor kept beating faster and faster, but Bridge wasn't—

His eyes. Behind his bruised eyelids, his eyes were rolling and shifting. His chest was rising and falling with shorter, quicker breaths, and as Sky watched, his face twisted into a faint grimace.

And then he started moving.

It was just little twitches at first – his fingers at his side, his toes beneath the covers, but then it was his hand, then his arm. They were sluggish movements, barely more than muscle spasms, but they were there.

Bridge was waking up.

"Bridge?" Sky's hand came to rest on Bridge's cheek. He could feel the muscles of his jaw tightening against his palm, could feel the thin sheen of sweat from his boyfriend's fever. A soft sound broke from Bridge's throat, barely audible over the thundering of Sky's heart in his chest. Between the noise and the distressed furrow of his brow, Sky could tell there was something wrong. Whether it was pain or a nightmare or just general malaise, he couldn't tell, but it bothered him regardless. "It's okay," he said, brushing his thumb over Bridge's temple. "Just try to open your eyes."

But as Bridge continued to show more and more signs of waking, he just got more and more restless. His lips moved, soundlessly at first, but then,

"Nnh…no…no…" It was as if, having grasped the one word, Bridge was clinging to it. He repeated it over and over again, each time stronger, each time more frantic. His brows furrowed deeper, and his good hand fisted in the sheets over his heaving chest.

Sky knew the signs, and even in these extenuating circumstances, he knew a nightmare when he saw one. "Bridge, it's okay," he said again, more firmly this time. "Try to focus on my voice, okay? Just focus on me. You're safe." He pressed another hand to Bridge's heated cheeks, holding his head in place as it started to toss.

And then, in an instant, Bridge was awake. His eyes were open, his heart monitor was racing, and he was sitting up, whether Sky's face was in the way or not.

Fortunately for Sky, he had better reflexes than his injured, groggy, and still-a-little-sedated boyfriend. He managed to catch him, taking a hand from his face to hold his shoulder to the bed.

_Un_fortunately, that didn't seem to sit well with the aforementioned injured, groggy, and still-a-little-sedated boyfriend. He panicked, batting Sky's hands away and trying to sit up. He only made it a few inches, however, before a combination of pain and Sky's tenacity pushed him back to the bed again.

This time, Sky kept a hand on his shoulder, but he returned the other to his face. He was trying to get him to focus on him, to see what was right in front of him – he was _safe_ – but his impossibly wide eyes were darting everywhere, and he couldn't seem to catch his breath.

"Bridge!"

That did the trick. Bridge gave a start, but those eyes finally snapped back to Sky. At first, the look in them knocked Sky's breath from his lungs. Panic and fear and pain and confusion – it was too much to process, and all too intense.

He wondered vaguely if that was what it was like for Bridge all the time.

"Hey, hey, easy," he said. "It's just me, Bridge. It's just me." He held Bridge still, and he held his gaze.

Eventually, it paid off. Slowly, recognition started to break through the haze of alarm, and he stopped trying to push Sky away in favor of clinging with his one good hand to Sky's t-shirt.

"Sky." His voice cracked from disuse and, more likely than not, intubation from his surgery. Sky made a mental note to get him to try and stomach some of the ice chips sitting on the bedside table. "Sky, I—where…?"

Bridge wasn't going to like the answer, but Sky couldn't exactly lie to him. "You're in the medical bay. You're all patched up, and—no, no, no, you can't do that, Bridge."

As soon as Bridge had heard 'medical bay', he'd started trying to sit up. Apparently, though, it was a more concerted effort this time, because he'd actually managed to get a foot over the side of the bed. Sky had to body block him to keep him from swinging his legs over, and he had to hold him to the bed again to keep him lying down.

"Bridge, buddy, you have to stay in bed, okay?"

"Don' wanna…wan…wanna…" Bridge's frown deepened as he tested the word. His tongue still sounded thick from the sedatives, and Sky knew all too well how much Bridge hated feeling 'fuzzy'. "'m I broke?" Bridge said. "I feel…I feel broke. Need oil, all grindy like…like Ric. An' I don' wanna get thrown out. Cruger wan'ed to…Ric, and I…" He trailed off. He'd worked himself up, and Sky now had on his hands a very agitated, very medicated, very injured Bridge.

"We're not going to throw you out," he told him with the most reassuring 'That's Ridiculous, Why Would You Think That?' smile he could muster. "And you're not broken."

"But I—"

Sky cut him off. "I know, Bridge. I know you don't feel right, but that'll wear off, okay?"

"Then it'll hurt."

He wasn't going to lie; he was a little taken aback. That was strangely lucid, even for a _sober_, coherent Bridge. He also wasn't going to lie to Bridge.

"Yeah," he said. "Then it'll hurt." And even just saying that aloud made Sky's insides twist. The idea of seeing Bridge in pain…. "Doc Manx will take care of you."

Bridge shook his head, only to apparently realize that was a bad idea. He winced, and went to feel his head, but Sky caught his hand.

"Sky, my head—" but then he stopped, and his eyes widened a little. "It happened. I was...and the bad guys…in my head. All the colors in my—" Again, he stopped, only this time, Sky didn't managed to catch him before he could touch the back of his head. Where Grumm's machine had once rested, now only a line of even stitches remained, secured beneath a thick bandage and a round of gauze. "He broke it, Sky. My head…it was—I was—I didn't know, and I almost—"

Sky knew where this was going; he could see it in the guilt in those green eyes. He had heard it once, and he didn't want to hear it again, so before Bridge's confused, contrite ramblings could continue, he pressed a thumb over his lips. "You didn't do anything wrong," Sky said. "It's okay, now, Bridge. You're okay." As he spoke, as gently as he could, he pulled Bridge into his arms. The position was awkward – he had taken up the side of the bed, half cradling Bridge, half hugging him – but Sky didn't care. Bridge was in his arms again, and that was all that mattered. "You're okay."

As the first sob broke from Bridge's throat, Sky felt the tears in his own eyes. He wasn't emotional; he never had been, but feeling his lover tremble in his arms, hearing the desperate, soul-shattering _relief_ in the sounds, knowing he was finally safe, was enough to break through even Sky's shields.

"I knew it was you," Bridge said through the sobs, his voice hitching and cracking. "The colors weren't—they were wrong, but I—I knew it was you. I knew, and I didn't—I almost…I'm sorry, Sky. I—"

"Shh…" Sky cradled Bridge's head against his shoulder, his thumb stroking the nape of his neck soothingly. "Don't apologize, Bridge. You've got nothing to be sorry for, okay? You did nothing wrong, and you don't have to be afraid." His voice caught around the word. Bridge didn't have to be afraid; he didn't _deserve_ to be afraid. Bridge was always meant to smile. "You're safe."

Against his neck, Sky felt Bridge's face shift. Curiosity made him lean back, turning his head just enough to look at his young boyfriend.

Bridge was…smiling.

"I know," he said, and there wasn't so much as a shred of uncertainty in his voice. He believed that; he believed in _Sky_. "I know…'cause you're here."

Those words, simple as they seemed, were enough to bring the tears spilling over. They made tracks down Sky's unshaven cheeks, only to meet their ends in the smile that had spread across his lips. He had found his Bridge.

"And I always will be."


End file.
